Julia Lynch Olin

Julia Lynch Olin (October 21, 1882 – March 11, 1961) was an American author and Baháʼí who co-founded the New History Society in New York City, and was later expelled from the religion by Shoghi Effendi around 1939. Through marriage, she was a member of the Astor and Dudley–Winthrop families. Early life Olin was born on October 21, 1882, in Glen Cove, New York. She was the daughter of Stephen Henry Olin (1847–1925), the acting President of Wesleyan University from 1922 to 1923, and Alice Wadsworth Barlow (1853–1882). Her sister was Alice Townsend Olin (1881–1963), who married Tracy Dows (1871–1937) in 1903. After her mother's death in 1882 at the age of 29, her father remarried to Emeline Harriman (1860–1938), the former wife of William Earl Dodge III, in 1903. Emeline was the daughter of Oliver Harriman and the sister of Anne Harriman Vanderbilt, Oliver Harriman, Jr., J. Borden Harriman, and Herbert M. Harriman. Her maternal grandparents were Samuel Latham Mitchill Barlow (1826–1889) and Alice Cornell Townsend (1833–1889). Her paternal grandparents were Julia Matilda Lynch Olin (1814–1879) and Rev. Dr. Stephen Olin (1797–1851), 2nd President of Wesleyan University and the son of Henry Olin (1768–1837), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont. Baháʼí Faith Olin was first introduced to the teachings of the Baháʼí Faith about 1925, as she states in her autobiography. Becoming intimately associated with Mirza Ahmad Sohrab they together with her second husband, Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, started the New History Society. This Society, based in the home that Olin and Lewis owned in New York, (later called Caravan House), published several books, into the late 1950s. It apparently became defunct after Sohrab and/or Olin had died.